


Hard Proof

by legendarytobes



Series: Gemelo [4]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Romance, angels are idiots, season five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendarytobes/pseuds/legendarytobes
Summary: Ella starts to put the pieces together about why "Lucifer" has seemed off since he came home. She doesn't like what she finds or how much she has to keep fighting her feelings and attraction for a possible impostor.
Series: Gemelo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832677
Comments: 44
Kudos: 174





	Hard Proof

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR SEASON FIVE, part 4 of the series so read in order.

**Hard Proof**

Ella couldn’t concentrate. That was new for her. She could always buckle down and dig into a knotty analysis. This latest case needed her expert eye to figure out the irregularities in the blood splatter patterns on the walls of the Sufarini mansion. However, her mind had just circled the same choppy waters over and over again:

 _Michael kissed me_.

Lucifer Morningstar (apparently originally Michael Demiurgos and only she knew that) had kissed her, and that was the worst thing that could have possibly happened. It was bad enough that he’d done it. It was so much worse that she’d liked it. For just an instant, she’d let herself relax in his embrace and imagine things, and that was impossible because it was just a phase. Michael or Lucifer or whoever he eventually decided to be had come back beaten, broken, and traumatized. He was working in the worst way possible through his PTSD, and if he just saw Linda or actually _talked_ to Chloe, things would get better.

The world was supposed to be Deckerstar. It was as sure as the sun rising in the east or that pi was 3.14159…etc. They always seemed to have epic ups and downs, but Ella loved them together. She was not obsessing what had happened yesterday, wishing it could happen again, and hoping that Michael would skip work today because she just could not deal with him at all right now.

Because she _wanted_.

For the first time in a very long time, she wanted. Sure, Ella had maybe---okay a lot---had crushed on that rat bastard Pierce, and she could admit now a couple years past all of it that she’d been pushing Chloe toward the lieutenant a bit vicariously. During her club phase, she’d had fun with one-night stands as she pleased with guys and a few girls. Even had a weird, totally out there make out with Eve while high on Molly, which was random. Still helped her focus for bomb stopping so it all worked out. However, she hadn’t had a relationship since Detroit.

She’d made such a mistake then, admitted to Federico that she _saw things_. Well, just one thing, just Rae Rae, who she hadn’t seen in months actually. But that had gone to hell fast. So Ella didn’t let people in, didn’t really date even if she was interested in sex at least when she was in a relationships, and had tried to lose herself in it for a substitute for missing the Big Guy in her freefall last year. But she couldn’t have real relationships because eventually whoever she dated would figure out she _saw a ghost_ , and think she was insane (maybe she was) and kick her to the curb.

It was so much better to just root others on or to occasionally have some fun, so she wasn’t so pent up, even if it felt empty and mechanical to her. The other way led to fights and tears and wide eyes of the person she loved thinking she was broken.

Which she’d probably been in some form since she was eight.

But with Michael, for just a moment, things had felt different. As odd as everything was, as mad as she was at him for leaving without telling her and breaking her heart to pieces, Ella was falling hard for him now, as he was.

That was also batshit.

It was all just Lucifer, and he was going through so much trauma since he’d tried to reconcile back home and gotten maimed by his brother, and if Dan had been her nadir, then she had to be _Lucifer’s_.

That stung.

To think that kissing her was a big honking neon sign that Lucifer was hitting rock bottom.

Because she felt for just a few minutes with his lips on hers and his big, warm hands roaming over her hips like she could be happy. Michael, who was weird himself even before his return, would understand. Even if she slipped eventually about Rae Rae (and she always did), he wouldn’t turn her away or call her nuts.

She knew he wouldn’t.

But that wasn’t right.

He was still Lucifer deep down, still just her friend with clear head trauma alongside of his emotional issues. If he weren’t injured, he’d still be able to do his desire thing that worked on all the subjects like a charm. She couldn’t take advantage like that. And she wouldn’t crush Chloe after everything her friend had gone through.

She wasn’t that big of a _puta_.

Ella sighed and let her hand stray over the St. Michael statue. Part of her still wondered if even now “Michael” was yet another persona, something he’d started building to cope again. One that had literally been inspired by her image. Maybe not, but she couldn’t be sure about anything with him. All she knew was her friend was struggling with who he even was, and her best friend was miserable but had been trying to pretend for weeks that she wasn’t. And it was so wrong that every time Ella closed her eyes, all she could think about was how _good_ it felt to have Michael’s lips on hers.

What kind of friend was she?

She sighed and eyed the scales of the statue. It had been a very long time since she’d prayed to the _actual_ St. Michael, since she’d reached out and begged for help while struggling through long, grueling hours of physio and surgical recoveries. She’d been tinier than Trixie was now.

And yet…

“Michael, I wish I knew what to do.”

There was a knock on her door before she had a chance to say more. Ella jumped back and looked over her shoulder, terrified it might be a certain very confused consultant trying to beg for forgiveness. Instead, she felt only marginally less panicked when it was Chloe. Oh crap. She’d been terrible at even avoiding spilling she’d slept with Dan.

This was worse.

“Hey Chloe. I’m sorry,” Ella said, walking back to her main table. “I haven’t gotten all the blood splatter analysis. I had a rough weekend, and I’m not thinking as well as usual.”

Chloe offered her a tired, brittle smile. “Well, you’re always brilliant so less-than-your-best is probably still 110% compared to the rest of us.” Her friend set her palms on the table and leaned forward a little. It didn’t surprise Ella that Chloe was barely able to stand these days. She felt, too, like she was bowing under the weight of the whole situation. “Can we talk?”

Ella froze but kept the smile on her face.

 _She knows. Rayos, she freaking knows_.

“Sure, uh, Chloe. Hey, is this about Lucifer? I mean I didn’t see him in yet. I know it’s not really much past noon, but even he manages to get out of _Lux_ by then. Is he taking the day off?”

_Please be doing that and the next four too…_

Chloe stiffened and struggled to stay smiling but finally, for the first time in almost eight weeks, didn’t bother to keep the front up. Her face fell and her eyes grew shiny. “We had a fight. He said he wasn’t up to coming in today, that he felt bad, and I just blew up at him.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Because I messed up. Lucifer’s been through Hell, and I screamed at him over the phone because he’s not back to his normal self after a couple months. I’m so selfish.”

Ella hurried around the table and grabbed up Chloe in a fierce hugs. Those she was still both sure about and good at. “Shh, Chloe, it’s okay. You’re not a bad person.”

“You don’t understand. Where he’s been…it’s petty of me to expect he was going to come back the same, if he came back at all. I should be patient and have more time for him, but it’s like he’s a completely different person. I just can’t relate to him at all. He seemed so distance at the zoo. Even Trixie’s noticed it, like he wanted to be somewhere else.” Chloe pulled away and sniffled into her sleeve. “Is it me? Is he miserable because he came back at all? Maybe I’m not all he remembered?”

Ella snorted. “Okay, clearly you’re not paying attention. You’re a badass, Chloe, and he loves you. Besides, whatever happened, he was gone six months and not sixty years. He will figure it out, and there’s no way he forgot you.”

Even if he had forgotten Candy, his ex-wife (technically) and some super basic facts about Ella, like her love of dance. There was just no way Lucifer would forget a single thing about Chloe. He loved her, and their own kiss was just a blip.

A painful mistake of a man floundering.

It was nothing more, and Ella had no reason even in a small, traitorous corner of her heart to wish things could be any other way, even though she totally did. Chloe would never know, and Ella was only human after all.

“He’ll get better, I promise.”

Chloe nodded and stopped tearing up. “He spends time in here when he gets tired at night. I…does he say anything to you? He won’t open up to me. He says it was bad, not to dwell on it, and this is the 2.0 version. It’s not much to go on, and I don’t know how to help him.”

Ella sighed. It wasn’t her place to tell Chloe about how badly Lucifer was actually maimed. She respected enough his right to disclose his disability if he wanted to. She’d be horrified if Chloe ever told anyone she saw ghosts, broke her trust like that. Lucifer might have been a big jerk for kissing her and for making things so much harder for Chloe, but to out his injured arm and side like that was cruel.

“He mostly just sits and stares into space.”

That was true. Michael tended to sit quietly---weird and so _not_ Lucifer---when he came into her lab. Ella would rattle off a million stories, and he’d mostly nod and, at most, give the occasional wry chuckle if the mood struck him. He didn’t say much, seemed to take comfort in her babbling like it was white noise.

That much was kind of familiar.

Chloe shook her head. “He always used to talk all the time. None of it makes sense. It just feels like the Lucifer I knew is gone, and that makes me sound like a bitch because I never thought he’d come back at all. So, he’s acting like a totally different person after where he’s been, and I feel like it’s all about me.”

Chloe knew where his family was, where exactly Lucifer had gone to get the crap beaten out of him by at least one brother. Ella wanted to ask where that was, but she couldn’t manage it without raising suspicion about herself. Instead, she patted her friend’s shoulder and offered her what comfort she could.

“He’s not though. This isn’t like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ or even like _Animorphs._ No plant alien duplicates or extraterrestrial slugs in his brain. See, totally fine!”

Chloe blinked at her and seemed too startled to speak for a moment. “Yeah, I guess things could be worse. I want this to be the good part. God, I want him to let me in a little and stop pushing forward, not talking about what happened, and pretending there wasn’t a six month pause in everything at all, for me at least,” she added. “I can tell for him it, uh, felt like forever.”

Ella nodded, considering that he’d been beaten significantly where he’d been, it probably had felt like a never-ending amount of time before he’d been able to escape his shitty family again. “It’ll take time, Chloe. I promise. I’m here if you need to talk, just like you’ve always been for me.”

Chloe nodded and hugged her tight. That made Ella feel like crap since about 24 hours ago _she’d_ been the one kissing on Chloe’s boyfriend. “You’re the best, Ella. If Lucifer tells you anything…if you get any insights into him. You’ll let me know. I just want to be there for him, but I’m not sure how anymore.” Chloe pulled back and sniffled. “It’s like we’re 100% out of sync, and I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to fix that.”

Ella swallowed. Hard. It hit too close to the bone but in reverse. Since they’d started talking again, since Lucifer/Michael found sanctuary in her lab and their almost-date (she could see that now) at _El Toro Bravo_ , things had been clicking so well between them.

God, it was so so wrong.

What was she going to do?

She forced herself to give her usually bubbly smile to Chloe. “You two are gonna make it. It’s like destiny, Chloe. You’ve gone through so much already, and you’re going to get through this.”

 _No matter what I have to do to fix it_.

**

He’d heard her.

Michael hadn’t focused hard enough to the prayers directed his way in years. He’d stopped trying even before humans had been perfected and the Garden of Eden created. Originally, prayers were for the Host to communicate with each other telepathically over distances and in battle. It had evolved into humans beseeching them like vending machines, which they were not. He’d heard Raphael lament that he couldn’t heal everyone more than once. Of all his siblings, the only two he’d really allowed himself around were dear Azrael who was so gentle with him and, to be fair, clung to him because he reminded her of Samael (and those two had been thick as thieves with his twin babying her just a bit). But once he was injured, Michael accepted her kindness. Raphael, he also communed with above, but it had cut to be around him.

Not because Raphael was cruel or disgusted when he stared.

Quite the opposite.

No, it was because his brother, the ultimate healer (his gift as surely as Command was Michael’s or Desire was Samael’s), could not fix Michael.

Because Father would not allow it to come to pass.

Raphael viewed Michael as his greatest failure as a healer, and it pained Michael to see the guilt and anguish in his brother’s face. Even as Raphael still tried, every day, as long as Michael had remained in the Silver City to heal him. But, _yes_ , his brother, Raphael, had been prayed to often by mortals.

It ate Raphael up that he couldn’t save them all.

To avoid the disgust of his siblings, Michael had shunted that ability away, forced himself to ignore prayers. Only been plagued by them a few times over the years, when human ones managed to infiltrate his mind. For some reason, he’d had quite a spate in the 1940s where humans across so many battlefields had called out to him in such force that he’d barely been able to think for several years. But usually, he could silence his mind.

But not today.

He was lying in bed, spasming on a heating pad and wishing human medications worked even at all on him, when the words, so very faint, resounded in his mind:

_Michael, I wish I knew what to do…_

It was her voice. Her sweet, bubbly, effusively cheery voice in his head. Although, of course, because of him, Ella’s tone was anything but cheery this afternoon. But he’d heard her anyway. She was praying to the St. Michael as she thought of him---God’s strongest warrior, the Sword of God and the Defender of the Church---as he had been and as he could never be once again.

But she was beseeching an aspect of him, even if she didn’t understand, couldn’t know he had once had been _that_ Saint Michael.

He struggled to sit up and groaned at the pain in his side. His wing felt like it was bubbling under his left shoulder, so desperate and straining to be let out. It often hurt to even try and push his wings forward. They never came out correctly---hadn’t since the Rebellion---and while the right would pop out with some force, the left struggled against him, and it felt like being ripped apart every time it was finally freed. But he hadn’t released them in almost eight weeks, not since the demon Mazikeen had confronted him, and he’d shown them to her as proof.

And what did it say when even a demon looked on the ruins of his wings in utter horror?

But they ached now.

Taking a deep breath, Michael stopped fighting his body and let the wings do as they needed. The right popped out first with some effort. The left took longer---took what felt like forever---and he gritted his teeth as bones grinded on bones and the malformed limb pushed its way from under his flesh. By the time it was over, Michael was left panting and shaking on the bed.

Even if he hadn’t called out hours ago, he’d be unable to go anywhere now. But tomorrow, he’d go back. He had to go in to see Ella and try and set things right. She was so upset, and it wasn’t what he wanted. _None_ of this was what he wanted. He was tying himself up in knots, somewhat literally considering how his muscles coiled wrong every day from the stress of hiding his wings, just to get a pointless revenge on Samael.

Samael who was in Hell again.

Samael who would stay in Hell for decades if not a century before he’d try vacations once more.

Samael who would never know what Michael had taken from him.

This wasn’t even revenge; it was merely making himself a prisoner in his own failed designs just like his twin was trapped in the Inferno. And all he wanted was…those soft lips back on his, that warm body in his hands, and that scent of sweet citrus in his nose.

He wanted _her_ , and he was stuck being “Lucifer” really, and Lucifer was a package deal with his miracle.

Chloe Decker was fine. Honestly, she was a good, organized cop and had a shrewd mind for detail and was dedicated on her cases. Chloe seemed to love her daughter fiercely and was kind to her friends. All admirable qualities, and he could see how her divine soul would earn her a space in the Silver City eventually. Michael _could always_ _tell_. However, there was no spark there, no attraction. Between her probing questions and her little annoying habits like snorting when she laughed and her obsession over perfectly scraped toast (really, who cared), Chloe Decker also annoyed him.

Oddly, if he really were just a consultant, he could respect her as a work partner. But as a friend or a lover---even if the pretenses weren’t odious to him in practice instead of potentially feasible in theory---she just wasn’t a fit.

Chloe didn’t babble adorably about flight, didn’t blush every time she realized she had talked too much (as if that were possible), didn’t still manage to have faith in Father and in him, and she didn’t call herself a bird nerd, which lifted his heart, thinking of a tiny, dark-eyed girl years ago, tending to injured pigeons.

Chloe wasn’t Ella any more than he was Samael, and that was his problem

But he would make it right. He could fix it. He knew he could.

After all, Michael had been the best of generals, and he could adjust a strategy when at first defeat seemed imminent. He was confident sharp analytics was the key to fixing this.

Women were like battles, weren’t they?”

**

“Oh, hello, Detective,” he said, trying his best to affect the spring in “Lucifer’s” steps and seem smooth and collected with his three-piece suit, this time a jade green with a dark shirt and a gold and black spotted silk pocket square. His twin was so very fussy, wasn’t he? “I’ve brought some things for the precinct to apologize for being unable to work yesterday. And I do apologize profusely for feeling unwell.”

Chloe frowned at that as he took the bag for her from his bigger cardboard delivery box. He’d run to a local coffee shop and bakery that Chloe had taken him to the first week, some attempt to apparently jog loose any memories after “thousands of years in Hell.” Of course, such an action wouldn’t help, and it was the first sign that his surveilling of his twin over the last couple of years, more or less, had been rife with holes. Apparently, Lucifer hadn’t liked just black coffee before.

Well there were many things Samael loved---debauched orgies that fell woefully beneath the standards of the proper Host came to mind---that Michael didn’t care about.

However, he’d brought some of those overly sugared coffee drinks with whipped cream and sprinkles for Choe, Ella, and even that dullard since they technically made up the team he consulted for. Michael smiled and handed one of those delightful drinks (he was an angel who loved his sweets, as many did) to Chloe along with a paper bag with a breakfast treat in it.

At first, Chloe brightened despite her scowl. Then, she opened the bag and seemed to deflate as soon as she realized he’d brought her two blondie brownie squares for dessert after lunch.

Oh hell. He’d gone and done something not “Samael-enough” again, hadn’t he?

It seemed to be all he was capable of doing as far as Chloe Decker was concerned.

The momentary sadness and pain flashed across Chloe’s face before she forced a smile back to it. “I get it if you weren’t feeling yourself. I can understand too. It was my idea about the zoo.” She looked over shoulder and leaned closer to him. “I should have known that the bats would…are your wings okay?”

Michael blinked. How could she possibly know? “What?”

“Nothing’s, uh, changed that much, has it? I mean…all feathers, right?”

Seriously, what in Father’s name was confusing the usually sharp detective?

“Feathers are fine,” he said tightly. “I feel much better today, darling.”

Chloe nodded and slid the bag to the side of her desk by a mug that had clearly been painted by Trixie as some type of Mother’s Day present, and a younger Trixie at that, one who had spelled “Momm” with two m’s.

“Glad you’re feeling, uh, more yourself then. Dan is…just leave his stuff on his desk. He has a meeting with a guy from evidence lock up right now. Ella will love her sugar and caffeine influx. Then, when you return, we have the blood splatter analysis back so…”

He nodded. “Have no fear, Detective, I shall be by your side to dig into all needed paperwork as always.”

She flinched a little then and Michael winced. He couldn’t help that part of the Lucifer 2.0 meant enjoying the fine print. He’d been the ultimate judge for millennia. He did not do shoddy, undisciplined work in the Silver City, and he’d be damned (ha) if he were going to do any less while on earth.

How his idiot savant of a twin had ever done anything without a proper system in place baffled him.

But he followed Chloe Decker’s advice and dropped a sugary bit of mana on the dullard’s desk and a spare croissant from the same bakery. It was the one that had gotten a bit of the coffee drink on it, so it was the soggiest bit of food available, just to still be malicious enough. Maybe. Honestly, Michael didn’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other about Dan Espinoza. His digs didn’t annoy him since, most of the time, he agreed with the man’s opinions of Samael. Mostly, the dullard was like a buzzing mosquito would be for a human.

An annoyance. _Sure_. Worth much thought or worry? _No_.

After that, Michael dropped the bulk of some extra croissants and donuts (Cops liked those, right? They seemed to on _Bones_.) and then ducked into Ella’s lab to deliver his treats for her. He eyed the clock and grinned brightly when it was past noon.

Good that seemed more appropriate.

“Ella, I’d like to apologize. I brought some things for the station, mostly pastries and things, but I stopped by for something special for you,” he offered, trying to borrow a bit of his twin’s natural bravado to beam back at her, to feel more confident and like a showman than he actually was.

Before she could say anything or do much more than look up from her microscope, Michael set down the box and pulled out a large order of still warm chips and the double devil (not a fan of the name) salsa that she’d liked so much at _El Toro Bravo_. He also set a coffee with extra rainbow sprinkles and whipped cream on the table and took out a mocha explosion of his own. Honestly, he’d been a fool not to take his coffee any other way but black for decades.

Then again, these drinks were about 95% sugar so now wonder an angel enjoyed them.

Ella glared at him and let out a rapid fire litany of Spanish that he had no hope of following. English he did. Enochian sure. A few bits of Lilim commands if necessary when once, long ago, deciphering demon commands had aided in battle. Yes. Spanish, no way José, as the saying went.

But he was pretty sure from the laser-eyed hate Ella was sending his way that she hadn’t exactly said thank you.

Michael frowned and sipped his drink. “Was this not okay?”

She hopped up from her stool, stomped---or tried to as well as she could in sneakers---to her door and locked it behind her. Her blinds were already drawn so that afforded them some privacy to talk.

“How was this gonna be okay, dude?”

He frowned. “But you like these things, and I’m sorry, so I brought them. That’s how it works.”

Ella shook her head. “Oh, I’m getting it a lot better, now.”

Michael quirked his head at her, not quite sure what she was getting at. “You do?”

“Yes! This is the kind of stuff that drove Chloe nuts when she was engaged to Pierce. I mean, you bring me coffee and tortilla chips, and try and buy her off with like a car so…I mean the principle sucks either way, but I guess you’re not gonna up that game for bribery for me, huh, anyway. So, I’d say double fail!”

He blinked. Samael had done what? “No, I just…I wanted to apologize for Sunday. I promise it won’t happen again. I don’t want to put you in a bad place, Ella. I know your friendship with Chloe means a lot to you.”

“You moron! How come your relationship with Chloe and fixing that isn’t the most important part of the equation? Also, even if you did bring me my favorite sugary treat and, okay, those are the best chips and salsa in L.A., that’s not how anything works.”

“But I’m sorry.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and, no, the former Sword of God was not afraid of a tiny scientist. Not one bit.

“If you were sorry, you’d be straightening things out with _Chloe_. You’d be telling her the truth about _everything_ , and you’d explain that you literally _can’t_ mojo people anymore. You try any of that, _tonto_?”

Michael swallowed. “No, I…I wanted to apologize to you first before coming clean with Chloe Decker. I just…I did apologize for missing work yesterday. My whole right side was spasming too badly to leave bed.” And his pathetic mess of wings hadn’t gone back in for hours. Their trembling, especially his left one, had been excruciating. “I’m sorry.”

Ella sighed and picked up his offered drink and the container of Mexican food. Then, she dumped them both in the trash can. For extra spite, she poured her half-finished Mountain Dew out on top of them. “Not accepted.”

“I brought that for you!”

“You wanted to snow me into saying what we did on Sunday was okay. It was so not. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever done. I mean, Dan and I already…” She slammed her mouth shut and looked up at him with wide eyes.

Michael felt an irrational pang of disappointment at that. He hadn’t known Ella almost two months ago or earlier for that matter. Whatever she and the dullard had done was none of his business. Although if she were in the habit of sleeping with Chloe’s lovers under her friend’s nose, then she was being a bit hypocritical now, wasn’t she?

“What?” he prodded before taking another sip of his drink. It really was good.

Ella paled and looked toward the blinds. “It was last year. It was one time, and he was sad about Charlotte and I was spiraling without the Big Guy.”

That much even Michael could relate to. By the time he’d left the Silver City almost four decades (though not quite) prior, Father had been on a walkabout to somewhere else in the multiverse for at least a couple years. It wasn’t a long time for Dad, relatively speaking, but already some of the younger Host were growing anxious, Uriel already sullen and the rarely present Azrael distracted and jumpy. Father was impossible, but life without him was untethered.

Look at him after all.

“I see.”

“It was like one of the top biggest mistakes of my life, along with getting kicked out of the Luxor in Vegas and that time I missed the cool advanced screening in Chicago of the first _Weaponizer_ movie when Jay scored tickets somehow. Like, it was _dumb dumb dumb_. And they’d been divorced for like two years!” Ella shook her head and readjusted her ponytail. “I’m not doing this to Chloe twice. I’m not even _looking_ for anyone’s leftovers.”

“I don’t really like that term.”

“You know what I mean. You’re upset and you’re hurt and you’re probably literally suffering some brain trauma in addition to your arm from where your asshole brother beat you up, but that’s not…you’re clinging to me cause it’s easy and we were just friends before. You think I don’t have any expectations for you, but I do.”

Michael set down his drink and suddenly found the gleaming metal surface of her table fascinating. She wasn’t completely wrong. It was easier to be with Ella (well easiest of all with the dullard who was happy to ignore him or only offer a few pedestrian barbs), but still simpler with her. Part of that was she didn’t look at him with hope and anguish every moment like Chloe Decker did.

But Ella wasn’t completely right either. A big part of the ease between them was because she understood him, and how odd to find simpatico of all things with a human _nothing_ like him.

“Then what do you want from me?” He asked.

She gestured wildly to the door. “You know! You tell Chloe everything and you make it work, you crazy Deckerstar kids, you. I don’t…I know you need a place to rest, but if you have to come to the lab to keep your arm from tensing up in front of Dan or the unis…I know that stares suck. I get that, but I can’t be here when you are.” Her voice wavered as she spoke the next part. “It just hurts too much.”

He stepped forward but stopped in his tracks when she backed up to her corner window box with all her religious artifacts. “Ella---”

“No, I can’t, and I won’t. Just talk to Chloe, okay? She’s the most upset of all of us. Now get hell out, Lucifer or Michael or _whoever_. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

**

Michael-Lucifer-Whoever at this point at least listened to her.

She cried for a good half hour after he left, and it took her another thirty minutes to realize that he’d forgotten his drink behind. She was about to toss it when Chloe slid into her office. Her eyes were red and her skin blotchy---which so never happened to her cause Chloe was pretty much a movie star even if that wasn’t her technical job anymore---and Ella was at least hopeful her friend and Lucifer had happened. (And, damn it, he _was_ Lucifer because that was who Chloe needed him to be).

But their talk must have gone crappily.

Ella was across the room and hugging Chloe lickety split, Lucifer’s cup left forgotten on her table.

“Oh, come here, Decker! Are you okay?”

Chloe pulled back and sniffled a little. “Fine. Lucifer is working on some filing stuff at my desk. Uh, we talked a little, and he promised he’d elaborate more on what it was like where he’d been and that it wasn’t fair for him to block me out of it. So that’s something.”

Ella eyed her friend, her heart racing a bit and hoping that Chloe hadn’t been able to tell what she’d done on Sunday. It had just happened, and Ella would never let that happen again. Even if that horrible, totally Judas Iscariot part of herself still wanted it. That part of her could _callaté_ and just not talk at all.

“So, that’s good, right?” Ella said, pulling away and trying to be hopeful.

Chloe shook her head. “It should be. It’s the most he’s opened up at all in weeks. But something still…it all feels off.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Chloe shook her head. “And I sound ungrateful because at least he’s back, but everything’s off. The way he looks at me…the way he _used to_ …it’s just gone. It’s like we’re practically strangers somehow. I know this is a little thing, but he brought me stuff from that bakery off Monticello and he didn’t get me lemon squares! He always does that. I knew when he left to help with his Dad’s business that if he came back, then he’d be different. But he’s like a completely different person.”

Ella’s brain was turning again, the gears locking into place. She’d felt that way too, and so much more than with the difference in Lucifer-Michael-Whoever leaving the method acting behind. At first, she’d written it off as her overactive imagination, but Chloe could feel it too.

Something wasn’t just off…he _felt_ like an impostor.

She tried to do her best to cheer Chloe up, getting her distracted for a bit to talk about the zoo and now Chloe’s fears that Trixie wanted a penguin or, you know, to settle for a cat. After her friend seemed calmer, Chloe excused herself to go to a question a witness near Van Nuys with Lucifer.

Ella didn’t waste any time once Chloe was gone to work on confirming her suspicions. Michael wasn’t Lucifer.

She _knew_ it.

Ella could feel it in her gut and not because Lucifer had mostly felt like a brother to her until now. No. It was _everything_ , all the endless differences. The gaps in his memory were so severe that either his brain was now swiss cheese from assault trauma---still an outside possibility but he’d probably be having problem with short term memory and simple tasks too with holes this pervasive---or Michael Demiurgos was someone else.

Ella pulled his prints with some finesse from the plastic cup and ran them through the LAPD database. Lucifer, like all of them, had prints on file to eliminate from crime scenes, and considering that he’d worn gloves exactly _once_ on a crime scene, that was clutch for them. It took under ten seconds to come back with a dull claxon ding and a blinking mismatch on the screen.

The impostor really was an impostor.

Ella swallowed hard and her hand went up to touch her lips, as the confusion and horror roiled through her. Who had she been kissing? Who was off with Chloe? And would he hurt them? She started her usual database research and looked for a “Michael Demiurgos” in the cities he’d mentioned before and found one hit. But it had to be wrong. The only Michael Demiurgos she came up with at all who matched any of Michael’s description had lived in New York back in 1984. Some medium-sized Wall Street brokerage had a write up about him but no picture.

_No fucking way._

Maybe this “Michael” had stolen a dead man’s social security number. It happened before with con artists to assume identities, and he was clearly good enough to have snowed them for weeks, even perfected to the casual observer (or just _pissed off_ observer, see Dan) the overall act of Luciferness. Maybe he’d been watching Lucifer for years to learn his mannerisms and all about his friends.

It turned her stomach, but if the fingerprints hit on nothing, and the electronic records only returned results on a guy who had to be like seventy-plus-or-dead, then she had other options. After all, Michael had left his straw behind, and he’d definitely had his mouth and his saliva all over it.

Ella picked that up and was halfway to her microscope to start prepping the sample when Rae Rae popped into existence right in front of her. It had been almost six months since she’d seen Rae Rae last (her ghost friend got busy), and Ella had so not been expecting her.

Then again, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition either.

The cup fell from her hands as she squeaked and jumped back…her shoes scrunching Michael’s lost straw under them and trashing the sample.

“Damn it! Rae Rae, you have to give me some warning.”

Her friend adjusted her glasses---yeah Ella thought that was weird too, but she didn’t make up the Ghost Rules---and yipped back. “Sorry, but I just felt you being so sad, and it was _a lot_. I know you want me to stay away cause things are going so well in L.A.” Rae Rae rolled her eyes. “I’m weird; I get it. But you don’t exactly look happy to see me.”

Ella frowned back at her bestie apologetically. “Sorry,” she continued getting to her hands and knees to pick up the remains of Michael’s straw. “I was about to run a test on a sensitive sample, but now it’s junk.”

“What’s going on?” Rae Rae asked, eyes wide.

Ella made quick work of getting paper towels and bleach to make her lab sterile again after she’d accidentally dumped at least half of a mocha-explosion on the floor. Stupid Michael. Stupid clearly crazy con artist or worse.

Stupid butterflies still in her very stupid stomach.

“Nothing or everything. I dunno. You remember that guy Lucifer I work with?”

“Uh, maybe? The one who steals your camera to take dick pics?”

Ella frowned “He doesn’t…wait, _did he_?”

If possible, Rae Rae seemed to blush. “Okay, well, not exactly something I realized you hadn’t noticed but, uh, tall and British?”

“Yeah that one! He had to go on a business trip for his Dad. You know, the type where apparently there are no phones or internet or freaking carrier pigeons, and he doesn’t tell me.”

Rae Rae nodded. “Oh, like when you were so upset, and we watched all the _Stephen Universe_ series for like a week back in May?”

“Yes, exactly that! But some other dude shows up, says he’s Lucifer, does a good surface job of it, but he doesn’t remember like half the things he should, so I just ran his prints and bam! He’s _not_ Lucifer.”

“Well, if they look alike…”

Ella shook her head as she got to her feet and put the collected chocolate-mess in her trash can. “No, fingerprints are unique. Even if you’re identical twins…” Ella blinked.

How dumb was she?

Well, of course Amenadiel hadn’t mentioned Lucifer having a twin, but, on the other hand, Amenadiel and Lucifer’s family was super messed up and spread all over. Maybe he figured Lucifer rebelling and being forced out meant that Michael would never even think to track him down, even now.

Rae Rae bobbed up and down on the balls of the feet and waved a hand in front of her face. “Hey! Hello Ella! Are you okay? You spaced out. Like, okay, so I’m not good at science but like if you had identical twins, same DNA so same fingers, am I right? Otherwise, sounds too nuts to me.”

Ella shook her head. “ _Hijo de puta_! I don’t know why Amenadiel didn’t get it first, but he’s not sleeping through the night with Charlie much. Damn it! I have to go.”

Rae Rae frowned. “And do what?”

“Figure out what the hell Lucifer’s apparent _brother_ is even doing here.”

With that, she hurried to _Lux_ , but not before grabbing a couple of supplies from Dan’s desk.

**

The witness interrogations had gone fine. In this case, Chloe Decker displaying her badge had been more than ample pressure for their two witnesses of the day to tell all they knew to them. That was better. Tomorrow evening, he’d have enough lies to try and spin for the detective to explain why he wasn’t able to “desire” anyone anymore.

Instead of trying to deflect from why he never could.

By the time he got back to _Lux_ , Michael was exhausted. His right arm wasn’t even pretending to cooperate, his shoulder muscles under his bad wing were throbbing, and he was dragging his right leg just a little as he got off the elevator at the club and headed for the penthouse suite one. It wasn’t quite past four and the club wouldn’t even be open for happy hour till six. It should have been empty except for Patrick and the rest of the staff bumbling around in the kitchen for prep.

What he did not expect was to find Ella Lopez sitting at the bar, glaring at him. It would have been more threatening if her t-shirt didn’t sport a cartoon hedgehog proudly declaring “Don’t touch me” on it, or, well, if her feet touched the floor while she was on the stool.

“Ella?” he asked. “I don’t understand. I assumed you were pissed off at me.” Hoping against hope, he limped his way to the bar, holding his head up as high as he could to pretend he had any dignity left. “Why are you here.”

Now that he was closer, his confusion only grew worse. Despite her casual attire, Ella had put on fresh make up before sitting down, and the deep red of her lips and her heavenly kohl-rimmed eyes were doing strange things to him, making him feel flushed when usually temperature affected him little if at all.

And his slacks felt too tight again.

Ella smiled up at him and utterly shocked him by running a palm down his chest, stopping just above his belt buckle. “I was thinking about everything today.”

Michael could barely breathe. _What on earth?_ Humans were more unpredictable than he thought.

“What?”

She leaned up and into his personal space even further, her lips inches from his. “You were sweet to apologize, Michael. I get that now. Besides, you know, if Chloe never found out about Dan and me that one time…maybe we can just get what we want.”

Michael wanted to try and think straight but since he was dealing with only the second erection of his life, and it was suddenly so hot in here that he felt flushed---and angels didn’t feel flushed---he wasn’t thinking logically. Or at all.

Ella leaned closer and that sweet perfume she favored, with just the hint of orange and grapefruit, hit his nostrils, and he groaned a little. “So, you’re interested?”

“You’re right that I have to have my long talk with Chloe Decker later tomorrow. It’s wrong to hurt her like this.”

Ella laughed and kissed him, her tongue invading his mouth and teasing his own tongue in ways that drove him mad, made him push his hips close to her and against her stomach.

She pulled back and winked at him. “Doesn’t feel like you think it’s wrong.”

“I…erm…”

She smiled up at him and blinked back at him through long lashes. “Close your eyes. At least humor a girl here and give her a good make-out. Michael, I’ve been thinking about you for two days straight. Haven’t you thought about me?”

Yes, Dear Father, had he. He’d had so many vivid dreams of Ella since Sunday, and this morning, and he wasn’t quite sure on all the whys of it exactly, but he’d had to clean his sheets before going to consult. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to humans and relationships over the last few decades rather than wile away endless hours with his spreadsheets.

“Of course,” he said, his voice hoarse.

She ran a hand over his good shoulder. “Thought so! Now, just close your eyes for me.”

He did as she asked. Honestly, at this point, he was so warm and his erection so pressing that he’d have robbed a bank if she asked him, cosmic scales be damned. Michael waited and expected another kiss but was confused instead when something vaguely annoying and ticklish (?) lanced through his body.

Opening his eyes, he frowned between him and Ella. She’d shoved a taser to him and had its electricity arcing even now through him. Honestly, it hadn’t felt like much of anything.

“What is going on?” she demanded. “I…”

Ella dropped the taser and started to back away from him, and if he thought her screaming at him this afternoon had been painful, Michael hadn’t been prepared for the utter shock and confusion in her eyes now. “I know that’s charged. I got it from Dan’s stuff. It’s LAPD grade. I…what is going on? Are you like strung out on something? I know PCP can be really powerful, but your pupils are clear and…”

Michael moved toward her, but Ella kept backing up, was almost halfway across the club, her back hitting the piano once she ran out of space in her path. “Ella…I can explain.”

“You’re not Lucifer!” she accused. “And I mean you were _never_ Lucifer. I ran your prints. So, who the hell are you, really?”

Before he could answer the lights in _Lux_ shut off, and Michael _knew_ , could feel it all in his gut as surely as he ever had anything else in his long, immortal life. His siblings were here, and not just Amenadiel and Azrael---really?---but Samael as well. Oh, someone had come topside after all.

When the lights blinked back on, as he suspected, time was stopped. Ella frozen like a statue and still trapped in her all-consuming horror.

_Of him._

Michael swallowed hard and forced his gaze from her and to his right. There stood Azrael, shaking her head with tears in her eyes. Amenadiel and Samael towered behind her, their rage radiating from their bodies.

And, for the first time since the Rebellion, Michael eyed his twin. Samael’s suit was covered in ash and ripped in odd places. The jacket a bit loose on his frame. His eyes were bloodshot and haunted, and that was bizarre too as Samael had spent far longer than six human months in Hell before. But there was a frayed wildness at his edges that was utterly unsettling.

When Samael spoke, his voice sounded _wrong_ , too deep and too gravelly, almost a growl that seemed to echo in multiple tones around the club. “You don’t belong her, Mikey.”

He looked from Amenadiel to Azrael in desperation. He could not take the Adversary alone. Why in Dad’s name were both his siblings siding with Samael? He understood Azrael, as Sam had always been her favorite, and she was, even now, young for a member of the Host. But the First Born knew better, knew his duty, and knew that the Great Serpent was not meant to live above ground.

But neither did anything more than draw closer to Samael.

Three-on-one then.

Michael shook his head. “You weren’t using this life. I thought I’d take it for a spin, Brother.”

Something red and angry flashed in Samael’s gaze, so like what Michael could do, what they _both_ could do as Demiurge, but it had never been like living flame before. What had actually happened to Sam in Hell? Why did his twin feel so utterly _wrong_?

Sam was vibrating with anger from across _Lux_. “With Chloe? With my dear friend, Miss Lopez? Tell me, Brother, were you going to hurt them? Be honest now, or I’ll know. Because if you were even _thinking_ of tearing them apart, I’ll do the very same to you.”

Was Sam’s skin even flushed so very red? What was going on?

“Enough, Luci!” Amenadiel ordered. “Michael, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“Are any of us who isn’t a psychopomp?” he said, gesturing to Azrael, who had the decency to blush. “Why do you two get to have families and lives and friends among the mortals, but I can’t?”

Azrael shook her head. “You can’t like this. Not with a lie, Michael, and not by playing with them. It’s Ella! She doesn’t deserve that.”

Michael frowned. He understood from Azrael’s tone that she knew the other girl personally, but he didn’t know how. Instead, he focused on what he did understand: Samael and the debt his brother owed him. “You ruined me, Sammy. You stole everything I had, and now you’re going to pay the price.”

He stood as straight as he could and shrugged off his blazer. It fell to the ground, but even then, his right arm seemed too out of it to respond. So be it. He’d have to beat the Fist of God and the former Lightbringer into submission one handed. It would be cathartic, even if he went down swinging.

Amenadiel’s expression as did Azrael’s changed to pity as they regarded him. They knew, but it had been decades since they’d all seen each other, and time dulled even Celestial memories. Samael had never seen him like this, and his brother’s expression, while it did not exactly soften, did seem to startle.

“What on earth ails you, Brother?”

Michael shook his head. “As if you don’t remember. You’re the one who wrenched my wing from its socket in your Fall, clawed and pulled against it till it broke apart and then never healed right.” He took in a sharp breath and forced both wings out even if it was an agonizing process. “This is what you wrought with your Rebellion, Sammy. Was it worth it?”

Amenadiel, always the older brother, moved around to stand between him and Samael. “We’re not here to fight. Rae Rae, take Ella home. Do it now and tell her whatever you have to, so she stays in the dark.”

Azrael nodded and picked Ella up in her arms like a bridal carry. “Are you sure I shouldn’t say something? She’s _Ella_ , and she’s going to have a lot of crazy questions when she wakes up.”

It was Samael who spoke then, his voice still too deep, too like that of the Lilim he ruled for comfort. “No, I don’t want her in this. I don’t…I know what it cost Charlotte Richards. I know what it costs Chloe and Linda. I don’t want this for her, and Mikey had no right to muck it all up.”

Azrael nodded. “Sure, Lu, one tap dance-a-rama of lies coming up.” With that, their sister flapped her wings and slipped between planes to get Ella home.

Michael wished he could have followed her and was also ashamed because a huge part of him was relieved his siblings had shown up. The look in Ella’s eyes was too raw---too gutting---to be borne. He didn’t want her to know either, and it was perhaps the first thing he and Samael had agreed on since making Mars.

“And what happens to me?”

Samael smirked. “Oh, you know what comes next, Mikey. We fight, I win this time, and Amenadiel takes your traitorous backside home.”

“I’d like to see it,” Michael replied, faking the confidence he didn’t feel in his body and his ruined muscles. But he’d been a general once; he was not hiding from his younger brother. Not now and not ever. “Then, let’s do this.”

Samael nodded and from his back erupted two, huge bat-like monstrosities that at best could be called a parody of angel wings and, at worst, living blasphemy. Michael gagged at the sight of them, and he watched Sammy flinch. It was so slight that even Amendiel didn’t catch it, but Michael knew his twin better than anyone---or he thought he had because, Dear Dad, what was _wrong_ with him---but Samael still flinched nevertheless. Michael understood why. The horrors on his back almost made his own look good. Truly, Michael had always thought that particular diabolical imagery no more than human fairy stories until now, but they were real.

And judging from Samael’s expression, he loathed his wings with the same intensity that Michael detested his bent and broken ones.

“Lucifer, Michael, I don’t think---”

“Do be quiet, Amenadiel.” Samael replied. “This has been a long time coming.”

With that, Michael knew what came next. With that, even though his leg dragged as he ran full tilt at his twin, the rush was on.

And so was the fight.

**

Ella woke up and bolted up…in bed.

_Wait, huh?_

That didn’t make sense. She’d been at _Lux_ and tried to expose Michael as the clear impostor he was. She’d even _shocked_ him with Dan’s taser. And he’d felt _nothing_. That was possible with enough PCP or hallucinogens in his system, technically, but he’d seemed sober. She’d seen nothing disoriented about him, not other signs like massive pupils.

But those tasers could drop a man a good hundred pounds at least bigger than Michael, and he’d acted like it was no more than static electricity. If that. So, she had to be confused.

She screeched a brought a hand to her chest when she saw Rae Rae sitting in the _Adventure Time_ bean bag chair by her bed. “What happened?”

“You were at work, and you passed out. I guess all the stress lately. You don’t remember?”

Ella shook her head. “No, I was at _Lux_ , and I was talking to not!Lucifer and…Michael, I mean, he’s an impostor but I couldn’t tase him and everything else is a big blank.”

Rae Rae’s eyes were owlish and worried behind her impossible glasses. “Nuh-uh, you had like low blood sugar or something. Sorry, never sure on that stuff, been a while with a body, but Chloe found you and she and Linda brought you back here. You’ve been sleeping it off a few hours. I felt it and was worried, so I’ve been keeping an eye on you just in case.”

“In case I bite it, and we end up bffs in the afterlife too?” Ella asked, winking at her friend, even though the story didn’t feel quite right. She’d had weird dreams since Sunday and some way not safe for work ones too. It was possible she’d imagined confronting Michael, especially since she’d come up with the sex kitten way to trick him. But it was all so fuzzy.

“I’m not gonna die, am I?” She asked the ghost before her.

Rae Rae shook her head. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

Ella laughed, and okay, it did have a hysterical ring to it. “I think death is above your paygrade, Rae Rae. I doubt ghosts get a say in it.”

Her friend offered her a small, Mona Lisa smile for a beat before continuing. “Maybe, but I still have watched you all night. You’re fine. Linda and Chloe called you off for the week. Maybe go see your doctor or whatever, but you are cleared to rest for the next three days. Do you want to do a _Who_ marathon or would you rather try some _BSG_? Ooh, it’s been forever since we’ve rewatched _Buffy!_ ”

Ella nodded and got to her feet. “Okay, we’ll do _Buffy_ , but the Spike seasons. Angel’s just not hot enough.”

“Whatever,” Rae Rae said.

“Hey, uh, Rae Rae, how can you sit in chairs without a body?”

Her friend shrugged and hopped to her feet. “Ghost rules are weird, even I don’t get them all, but it does beat phasing through everything. So, are we watching the Slayer of Slayers or are we not?”

**

Rae Rae stayed all day. It was the longest they’d ever hung out together at one time. Ella figured that was usually because her ghost friend flickered in and out and couldn’t control how long she stayed in one place. However, maybe because Ella was hurt and scared…maybe just for today there’d been enough motivation on Rae Rae’s part to keep her on this side of the netherworld.

Whatever.

It had gotten them enough time to get through most of the back end of season five and skip to “Once More with Feeling,” which they’d watched twice because, damn it, Ella deserved a fun sing along after fainting and apparently going nuts. Sometime after Buffy and Spike had wrecked a house and wrecked each other ( _if you caught her drift_ ), Ella nodded off. When she woke next, the sun was rising, and it was early---like ass o’clock early---on Thursday and her spectral buddy was long gone.

It was sweet.

Rae Rae did try whenever everything was going wrong for Ella to be there for her. It was just…ghost friends weren’t helpful to have as a teenager and when you couldn’t shut up about it. Part of her would always be scared of what she could see and, you know, wonder why Rae Rae was the only ghost she ever had. And part of her would always hate how her ability made her family look at her weird and had led to doctors and treatments and an exorcism all in vain. But Rae Rae was family by now, like the sister she never had, and the ghost made the hard stuff better.

So, overall, Ella was glad they’d had a chance to enjoy each other’s company too, to take her mind off the impostor until she healed up.

She sighed and shook her head. _Dear Virgin Mary and, okay, Saint Michael too, what am I even supposed to do? What if he hurts Chloe? I…am I going even crazier than usual?_

Ella got up---still a bit woozy---and showered. She’d changed into a pair of flannel pj bottoms ( _Rick and Morty_ for the win) and a plain white tee when a knock sounded on her door.

“Who is it!” She demanded.

Thinking better of it before just opening the door, Ella darted back to her bedroom and rummaged through her top drawer for her brass knuckles. If Michael was trying to harass her, he’d be very very sorry.

And so would his _huevos_ , for sure.

“Miss Lopez, I need to talk.”

She rolled her eyes on the other side of her door. “No, I am not doing this. I can’t right now.”

Michael Demiurgos pressed his luck by switching accents and trying again. “Ella come on. Let a guy in!”

“Um, still no, and you might want to see Linda about the two personalities thing; DID is no joke, dude.”

Then, to her utter confusion both Lucifer and Michael started yelling and talking over each other. Disoriented and, okay, a little curious, Ella peeked through her peephole to see Lucifer in all his three piece suit glory (a lot of purple this time) and Michael in jeans and a _Rolling Stones_ t-shirt arguing side by side.

She blinked.

Then, she set her head on the door. Ella already saw ghosts, please God, don’t let her be seeing people who weren’t even there.

“I’m hallucinating.”

“Miss Lopez, I’m quite the talented lock pick myself. I would much rather you let us in, and I assure you my _twin_ and I are both here and quite corporeal.”

There was a grumble as well. “Ella, he’s right. We’re actually here.”

“I don’t know that for sure!”

“Whatever do you mean?” Lucifer asked.

Michael stilled instead of asking a question at first, then he looked to the peephole with wide, brown puppy dog eyes. _Damn him_. “Ella, you’re alright. Look, Lucifer got back to town. I’m an idiot, I never should have done this to anyone, but you’re not hallucinating either of us. We’re real; I swear it.”

She sniffled on the other end, tears welling up in her eyes. “You better be. I cannot deal if it’s a trick.”

“Why ever would it be?” Lucifer asked.

Michael set his palm on the door. “It’s alright. I promise, you’re not crazy. I’m just an asshole.”

Lucifer preened beside his brother. “Good show, Miss Lopez, I’ve been trying for eons to get him to admit that.”

She giggled and opened the door, regarding both of them with a stony glare, and _deliberately_ not inviting them inside. “Lucifer, you’re back!”

He gave her a courtly bow and grinned at her. “But of course, accept _no_ substitutes.”

Michael rankled at that but gave her a lopsided smile. It was offset a bit by the huge shiner he was spotting. Actually, come to think of it, Lucifer’s lip looked badly split too. Ella understood this, especially with how Jay and Caesar as the two oldest always went hard on each other.

She narrowed her eyes and crowded her doorway, in case either brother was dumb enough to think she’d let them in after how furious she was with _both_ of them. “You left without saying goodbye, Luce…um…ifer.”

Lucifer frowned and it cracked his lip open just a bit more. “Yes, well, I had urgent family business and---”

“You didn’t let me know, so we’re not good. At all.” Then, she turned to Michael. “You’re even worse, lying to me for weeks, saying that you _were_ Lucifer and confusing me! I…what even was any of it? I don’t want to talk to or see _either of you_.”

Lucifer stilled. “But Miss Lopez---”

She shook her head and slammed the door. “No, go away. You both are jerks!”

Lucifer reached for her knob again, but Michael snaked his good hand out and grabbed his brother’s wrist before Lucifer could. “Sammy, she’s right. We fucked up. I…let it be till she gets to work next week.”

“I hardly think you know _my_ friend better than I do, Mikey.”

“He’s right!” she shouted through the wood.

“Well, then,” Lucifer said, straightening his lapels. “I hope I shall see your smiling face around the precinct and your lab on Monday then, Miss Lopez.” He eyed his twin. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby. I’ve a feeling you _desire_ to relay tender whatnots, and I’d rather give Miss Lopez space for such a display.”

With that, he turned on his heels and hurried to the stairs of her walk up.

Michael hesitated before knocking on the door, seeming to realize that it would do no good. At least she _hoped_ he got that much.

“Ella, I just wanted to see if you were okay. We left it so badly at your lab and---”

“You lied to me. You even let me think we were connecting, but we weren’t. How bad is that? I thought you were at least my friend, and what? Were you just trying to get in my pants?” She choked back a sob. “Oh God, were you trying to do that to spite Lucifer? _Rayos_ , why would you even do that?”

Michael shook his head frantically and a few strays of curly hair fell into his eyes. “No, Ella, it was never about that. I wasn’t trying to use you to hurt Sam at all.”

She was so not going to get into why Michael called Lucifer that; after the last eight months, Ella could give a crap.

“And I thought I saw you at _Lux_ , and I feel like I’m going crazy, and I _hate_ that feeling and just go away! I don’t ever want to talk to you again.”

“Ella please.”

“Go to Hell!”

He nodded and swallowed hard. “I feel like I’m already there, and I did it to myself. But don’t….don’t ever be afraid that you’re crazy, alright? You’re not. You the smartest, most clever, most amazing human I know. You’re perfectly sane; I swear it.”

She frowned at the door. Lucifer had barely noticed her worry that since she was seeing _two of them_ , that Ella assumed she was losing her marbles. Michael had zeroed in on it. She frowned, remembering her prayer to Mary and, well, the saint and laughed a little. Dear Big Guy, she’d been hanging around Lucifer and all his weird method stuff too long.

Michael was just Lucifer’s apparent con artist twin, nothing more than that.

He was hardly a saint.

“Thank you,” she answered weakly. “I mean, it’s good to know you’re just a big jerk, and I’m totally okay. Please leave, Michael. You had so many chances to be honest with me, to ask me to help you get out of this weird brotherly prank. You didn’t and…I just…was anything _real_?”

She stood on tip toe to look back through the peephole. One wide brown eye blinked back sadly at her; the other tried but was half-swollen shut.

“I do care about you, and, yes, the one thing I wish weren’t true is that my right side is permanently fucked up. I…Sammy did that. We’ve talked and, well, literally beaten it all out too. But my bad right side, alas, wasn’t an act to get more sympathy from you. I fucked up, and I know it, but I do like you and I just…”

She shook her head. “If you think because there really is a Lucifer and he and Chloe can all be perfect together now and that means you can pursue me like you didn’t just pull out the evil twin act, then forget about it, buddy. You lied to me so much and manipulated me, and that was all on you.”

“But I was mad at Sam and---”

“You still chose! It’s all about Free Will from the Big Guy, right? Well you chose to be a bitter, manipulative bastard and play me for a complete moron, and I’m choosing to never talk to you again. Leave already.”

“Ella!”

“Goodbye, Michael.” She said, slumping against the door and tearing up, even as she tried to keep herself from breaking into noisy sobs.

Michael’s voice was closer to her, as if he were leaning right up to the door, as if he could _feel_ her heart breaking through it all. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve this, and I am a bastard. Just…never doubt your sanity because of me, Ella, because you’re the best human I know.”

And with such a weird final set of words, Michael must have turned and headed to the stairs too because she could hear his heavy footsteps all the way down the hallway.

Barely able to move and so incredibly tired all over again, Ella slumped to her couch and booted up _Kill Bill_ instead of more _Buffy_. She really needed some ass-kicking by proxy today. And she didn’t need Michael Demiurgos.

Not at all.


End file.
